


The Dangers of Beacon Hills

by httpstiles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bad Touch, Duct Tape, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Stiles, Kidnapping, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8399044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/httpstiles/pseuds/httpstiles
Summary: Beacon Hills is a small town so Stilinski always figured that the supernatural made up for the lack of crime twice over. Now, not long after the Nogitsune, Stiles is missing, but it's not the supernatural this time.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Not the Only Thing Dangerous in Beacon Hills](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042840) by [httpstiles](/users/httpstiles/pseuds/httpstiles). 



> ATTENTION: Rape/Non-Con is for bad touch and is never explicit.

It’s 1:00 am when Scott’s phone starts ringing. For a second he thinks it’s an alarm, but it’s fall break and  _ hmm, that shouldn’t be on _ , so he hits the lock button, and by default the ringing stops. At this point he’s slightly awake, so when it goes off again, he’s able to distinguish the  _ Sheriff’s  _ ringtone. He answers immediately and barely has a greeting off his lips when he interrupts.

“Hey Scott, can you do me a favor and tell my son to give me a call when he’s going to be staying the night?” He sounds slightly annoyed, but his tone has a playful hint to it. He’d find it funny except that –

“Stiles isn’t here.”

“What? This note says he’s at your place. His car isn’t here either.” Scott tries to think if maybe he was supposed to be covering for Stiles right about now, but he can’t recall them ever having a conversation about something of the sort.

“He’s not here. He left like three hours ago,” he says getting up, and starting to put on his shoes. “It’s his handwriting?”

There’s a pause on the other end, and a ragged breath. 

“Yeah, it’s his– I mean, he wrote it, but what if–?” The nogitsune is something they don’t just  _ bring up. _

“There’s no way. I’m calling the pack, if Stiles isn't with any of them we’ll meet at your house soon. Don’t touch too many things.”

 

Within twenty minutes, Scott, Derek, Lydia, and Melissa are gathered in the Stilinski household. Derek is checking out chemosignals. Scott could pick up on one himself, but he didn’t want it to be true, so he left Derek to the more detailed scents.

“Fear,” Derek says returning to the kitchen, where’s they’ve all taken to waiting. “There are scents of other people here, too. They carry the smell of gunpowder, though.”

“Hunters?” Melissa asks.

“No. Even hunters who don’t have a code wouldn’t go after a human pack member. They also carry the lingering scent of wolfsbane, but there’s none here. Just two males, mainly around the bed.”

“The bed?!” Everyone’s eyes go wide, and Derek pales a little bit.

“Not like that, sir. Just, some struggle it seems.”

“I don’t get it then,” the Sheriff sets down the note that Stiles wrote, and Lydia immediately picks it up, examining it. “Regular humans and my son being scared but leaving a note?”

“This isn’t his regular handwriting,” Scott says as he looks over Lydia’s shoulder. “It’s his, but like, when he has major anxiety, his hands shake more.That’s what this looks like.” 

“So what? He was forced?”

“Yes.”

“Where do we go from here, then?”  
“We follow the scent,” Derek speaks up.

 

Derek and the Sheriff go alone, but they take Derek’s car to be less conspicuous. They get toward some shady parts of town when Derek’s nose flares. Stilinski doesn’t take it as a very good sign but continues driving on.

They approach the old mining district when Sheriff stops driving. His breath catches and he stares dead ahead. Derek is ready to get out when Sheriff shifts into reverse and backs out like hell hounds are at his heels.

“What are you doing?” Derek asks. “Stiles–”  
“Stiles has been kidnapped by the gang, Derek!” It takes Derek a second to process this, and by the look on his face, he’s confused. He’s a new deputy under John’s wing, so he knows about the gang, the arrest yesterday too, but he can’t connect Stiles to it.

“What? Why?”

“Because I arrested one of their group yesterday! They want him back.”

“Then let me call the pac–”

“–We can’t! This is a police matter! You know it will be messy if we go in unofficially and some get away. You are going to call in right now as an anonymous tipper and then we’re going right back to the house and waiting to get called in. We’ll have to call in SWAT–”

“Wait,  _ SWAT _ ?”

“Yes.” Stilinski grumbles again. “These men are  _ dangerous _ . They’ve done horrible things. They’re part of a larger branch of organized crime. The higher-ups didn’t think you deputies needed debriefing because they looked ready to move out of the area and the FBI were going to be taking over.” A moment of silence goes by before he starts speaking again. “I can’t believe I didn’t pay attention to this. I should have seen it coming when I– they warned me, but I had no idea–” John angrily smacks the steering wheel and they fall into silence. 

“You’ll get him back.  _ We  _ will get him back.” John eyes Derek, but doesn’t say anything when he sees the phone coming out. This just got a little bit more real than it’d felt before.

 

“Where’s Stiles?” Scott demands the second the two come walking in the door.

“We couldn’t get him yet,” Derek explains as John heads straight for the stairs.

“Why?”

“It’s not hunters and it’s not some random guy. There’s a gang targeting the Sheriff and they’re using Stiles to get to him.” Scott turns to his mom with wide, glossy eyes. 

“Hey, hey,” she pulls him into a hug. “John’s going to get him back.”

“What’d you guys do?” Lydia pipes in. “Why aren’t we helping?”

“Police matter,” the Sheriff says, coming down the stairs with his gun in holster. “I got the call, I’m heading in. Hale, are we doing this or what?”

  
  


It had been late when he got home. He was exhausted and tired, so once he had reached his bed, he flopped hard onto it without changing or flicking on the light. 

From the dark of the shadows, several figures appeared, and he shouted. He sat up immediately, but a hand came down on his neck and pressed him back into the bed. The stranger straddled his waist as another man yanked his arms above his head,wrapping his wrists in duct tape. He tried screaming, but he could only gasp for air and kick. 

He brought his knee up and managed to get the guy above him in the back, but the man only let out a grunt. The man with the duct tape moved around the bed and ripped off his shoes, then his socks, and then he came across the strap with the knife on his ankle. Around the pounding of his heart beat in his head, Stiles could hear the man chuckling. 

“Hey Mitch.” The man held up the hand knife and tossed it over his shoulder. “What do you think he does with that?” The man with a grip on his throat – Mitch apparently – shrugged. He moved off of Stiles and finally removed his hand. Stiles gasped for breath and hacked. His throat felt like a ball was trying to worm its way up. 

“ _ Stiles  _ right?” Stiles eyed the man carefully. He didn’t seem supernatural or like a hunter. The man at his feet shoved his pant legs up and wrapped the tape around his bare ankles. “Your father, the  _ sheriff _ , took something of mine. I guess it’s only fair we take something of his, too, ay?” The guy with the tape came up and covered his mouth, wrapping it around his head multiple times.

Stiles really didn’t like where this was going, hadn’t since the first second of this all, so he did the only thing he could think of. He brought his hands up, balled them into fists and swung them at the man’s head. The man saw it coming, but didn’t back away in time. Stiles managed to clip the man’s nose and his head snapped to the side. It snapped back just as fast, though, and anger rippled across the man’s shaking face. 

“You’ll regret that later, kid.” He grabbed Stiles from under the arm and the other man grabbed the other side. They tugged him up and lifted him so that his feet barely scraped the floor. He tried to slow them down by stretching his feet down, but the wood floor just tugged his skin uncomfortably. He shouted from behind the tape and tried shaking them loose, but their grip only tightened. 

They turned into the kitchen and he was tossed half over the kitchen counter. His upper body pressed against the cold tile and his lower body dangled over the end. The pressure of the edge in his gut made it painful to breathe. 

“Alright kid, plain and simple– easy even. Just write a note to your dear daddy that you stayed the night at a friend’s house.” He was yanked back up and shoved in front of the fridge then. Him and his dad have a small notepad with a magnet that sticks there. It’s usually used for shopping lists, but this time he’d pretty much been forced to make an acception. 

A pen was shoved into one of his hands and he had to bring them both up to write. It wasn't until the pen touched the paper that the fear and panic set in. There was a single ink dot on the paper and his hands began to tremble. 

“For the love of–”

“Shut it D.C.” Mitch snapped. “Hey, Stiles,” his voice said with the most warmth he’d heard from him thus far. It crept him out. “Stiles, shhh.” Mitch’s hand came up and stroked his face. Stiles couldn’t help it when the tears started falling, but Mitch wiped them away. His struggles picked up again and Mitch gripped his cheeks. His head was snapped to face the man.

In the light, he saw Mitch then. It’s odd how normal he looks. He’s in his late thirties at  _ oldest _ and he looks some part Asian, but more white than anything. The glare and smirk on his face was disturbing and Stiles squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Do this and you’ll be home to your dad in no time. We just need to buy us a little time to come up with a plan of exchange.” Mitch moved his head to face the paper again. “Now do this before you dig yourself a grave.”

 

Now Stiles was sat upon a chair, wrists now restrained behind him, in an old apartment in the mining district. If he remembered correctly, mining here had become dangerous, so work here had seized and the apartments meant for offices and the workers who lived on site had been abandoned a couple of years back. There are more men here, a group of at least five from what he’s seen. Mitch argues with another guy. 

“He’s a fucking kid! You said his son was older! I have my own moral code, Mitch, you know that!” Stiles would be arguing that he’s not a kid, except he really is only seventeen and if this guy is against the kidnapping, then maybe he’s not  _ terrible.  _

Mitch, however, rolls his eyes at the man.

“What do you suggest then? We take him  _ back _ ?” 

“No, but we can ditch him somewhere for someone to find.” Mitch wrinkles his face and turns to face “D.C.” and another man. They’re behind him so he can’t see how they react, but Mitch gets the look of pure exasperation, then in the blink of an eye, he pulls a gun out and shoots him in the head. 

“Move them to the back closet.” 

 

The station was a mess. Sheriff was running himself in circles with too much thought over  _ why _ they had taken Stiles. To get to him, obviously. The man he’d arrested yesterday had said as much– his group would get back at him for this. But why hadn’t they sent some sort of ransom or contacted him? 

 

“Sheriff,” one of the deputies called from behind him. 

“What is it?”

“We found Stiles’ jeep about ten miles out from your house in the opposite direction of our anonymous tip’s location. Do we want to trust this? Is there any chance that your son–”

“We are heading there,” John interrupts. “I have no doubt. I’ve already tracked Stiles’ phone. They either took it with them because they didn’t think I’d figure them out or they’re just that stupid.”

 

Derek geared up, having to get the mandatory bullet-proof vest on. He was ready with his gun fast, but they couldn’t move out yet. He just had to wait patiently as he smelled emotions varying from fear to anger rolling off of the Sheriff. 

  
  


A half hour had gone by since Stiles had been put in this closet with the dead body of the man who’d been against the kidnapping. His body was a slump in the back right corner, and Stiles had taken to the opposite front corner, next to the door. He could hear the conversation in the front room better this way. 

 

Time was dragging on slowly. He’s stopped paying attention to the conversations in the front, focussing more on staying awake now, but he’d surprisingly been able to hear quite a few things that he could pass over to the police when the time came.

His drifting thoughts were interrupted when the door to the closet was yanked open. His struggle to stay awake became easier as fear and adrenaline immediately coursed through his veins. 

“So what are you good for, boy?” Mitch crouches down in front of him and leans forward into Stiles’ space. Stiles doesn’t react, and the man sighs.

He reaches out for Stiles’ face and runs his fingertips along the tape on his face, scratching at the edges, checking to see if it’s still secure and not slipping. He seems satisfied, patting Stiles’ cheek and leans back, falling to his butt. 

Mitch looks at the dead man, clicks his tongue, and then looks back to Stiles again.

“He was a good man. Maybe taking ya wasn’t the smartest, but he must’ve been stupid shit if he thought we could just take you back and book it out of here. We got jobs here ya’know?” 

Stiles still refuses to give him any sort of acknowledgement. He can’t speak, so he doesn’t try, and he sure as hell doesn't have to make small talk with the dude who kidnapped him. 

“You’re a lot less reactive to what I’m saying now compared to earlier,” Mitch says thoughtfully. “Maybe I need to do something to get a rile outta you yet.” Mitch smirks and moves to his knees, leaning forward next to Stiles’ face – practically cheek to cheek. He plants one hand on the wall, effectively blocking Stiles in the the corner. 

He leans back and for a long moment, Mitch stares at Stiles, but Stiles ignores him, choosing to look at the low light from the hallway.

“You took a beat down pretty well, kid. You’re no trembling mess. Are you used to it– that has to be it. Does daddy hit–” Stiles’ head snaps to the left to face him. “Oh, I’m sorry! I hit a nerve? Not daddy then. Bullies?” Stiles looks away again and stares at the floor. “Nah you have a sheriff for a dad. Who would fuck with you?” 

Mitch hits next to his face, rattling the wall. 

“What makes you tick?!” 

“MITCH–!” From the front room. 

He responds back, leaning out the doorway a little bit. “Just having some fun, D.C.!” 

“Don’t  _ break _ the place! It’s all we got!” Mitch laughs and faces Stiles. 

“That guy is a worry wort ain’t he?” he looks down in laughter and then comes to a slow as he runs his eyes up and down Stiles. “I think it’s time we sent daddy a ransom note now.”

He doesn’t like the look on Mitch’s face.

 

The sheriff receives a text just before 3:00 am. 

Derek is the first to see the sheriff’s reaction. It starts with anger, but builds up into panic, and fear. John passes the phone to Derek in haste and collapses into his desk, relying on it to hold him up. He’s breathing heavy, but not having a panic attack. Deputy Clarke rushes to his side and a couple others surround him, including Cordova, one of John’s oldest police friends, and Derek lifts the phone to look at the screen. 

The text reads from Stiles, but the photos in the message show that someone else clearly took them.

From one photo it’s just Stiles’ sitting on the floor below a window. He’s facing away from the camera. It’s clear that he’s restrained; there’s duct tape on his mouth, his arms are pulled behind him, and his legs are stretched out in front of him. 

It takes a moment for everyone to catch on to what the sheriff had nearly panicked over. He looks unharmed for the most part, but at the bottom of the screen, where Stiles bare feet are, barely in view, a hand grips his ankle, half of it up Stiles’ pant leg. 

One of the officers mutters under their breath as Derek scrolls to the next photo. In it, the man behind the camera is reaching forward, stroking tears away from Stiles’ face. It’s up close this time, and the bruising around Stiles’ neck looks serious. 

Silence falls over the few of them in the room. Most of them know Stiles personally. Even considering all of the officers who have died these past couple years, there are still a hefty amount that have been around since the sheriff was still a deputy and Stiles was just a kid. He’s  _ still  _ a kid, in their eyes, younger than most of their own. Seeing him in this state isn’t easy. It makes some of them sick, but the common feeling in all of them is anger, especially in John and Derek.

At the bottom of the pictures is one text stating a time, late in the afternoon, a place, and their price. Of course they want their partner back, but they want money, too. What this group doesn’t know is that the force knows where they’re hiding now. They have the upper hand and the only thing they’re getting is a raid on their place within the hour.

  
  


It’s around 3:30 am when Scott gets a text from Derek that says they are leaving the station soon. 

 

There are several police cruisers driving into the area without sirens or headlights. They move slowly and  follow SWAT just a couple hundred feet ahead.

 

They sweep a couple of apartments to check for people. They find one guy and quietly remove him, then narrow it down to the one that Derek already knows Stiles is in. Himself and Cordova, are on Stiles detail and the rest are going in specifically for the gang. 

A smoke grenade opens their entrance and shouts from inside start up. Derek and Cordova run in, past the chaos starting up in the main room. They make it to the hallway before the guns start going off. There’s some yelling from the men in the room, but the two ignore it and follow the hall. One of the bathrooms is locked, so Derek smashes the door in. There’s no one there, so they move to the next door. It’s a closet.

The thick smell of death and blood hits him like a wave and he shines a flashlight to see a dead man staring back at him. Cordova shuts the door and motions for the back room. They’ll have to worry about that later. 

With all the noise now raging in the background, it’s hard to focus on Stiles’ heartbeat, but Derek knows he _ has  _ to be in this last room. There’s nowhere else he could be, and he had heard him before.

Cordova leads way to the end of the hall. When he tries to open it, it’s locked. 

“It’s bolted!” Derek turns around to find a man with blood dripping down his mouth. The man holds the gun up, smiling hysterically, and just as he’s about to shoot, he’s tackled down and being wrestled into handcuffs. 

Derek examines the door again and sure enough, at the top of the door, something is screwed into it, connecting it to the door frame. Derek nearly growls, but by the sound he  _ does _ make, he figures it must have been damn close because Cordova steps aside, eyeing him with a certain look.

Derek eyes the door methodically before swinging his foot up. The door knob splinters off, and Derek reels back before kicking in with full force. The metal contraption flies off the door and into the room somewhere that Derek couldn’t care less about. 

Inside the room, there’s a couch, a few feet off the wall, and a TV. To the right is a window that Derek recognizes from the pictures they sent John. To left is a small bathroom with a door resting open and a sink, but nothing else. 

“I’ll check the bathroom,” Cordova says immediately.

“Shit,” Derek curses under his breath. He walks in and checks the wall for another door. He nearly punches it when he hears a soft thud. His head whips around, but finds nothing but the cou – the  _ couch _ . Derek moves fast then, and sure enough behind it is a small chest– trunk?– he doesn’t care what it is, but he can feel Stiles in there. 

Derek shouts for Cordova and pulls the trunk out from behind the couch. There’s a jerk as he tugs and he moves as fast as he can without panicking.

When it’s finally accessible, he rips the lid off and stares down in shock. Stiles is right there, shaking and crying, but  _ there.  _ His wrists are restrained with rope, as suspected before, and his legs are curled up to fit, ankles wrapped in an unnecessary amount of duct tape. There’s something else wrapped around his head, though, acting as a makeshift blindfold. 

Derek moves to pull him up, Cordova supporting Stiles’ other arm. Initially, Stiles struggles, but he stops when Derek calls out to him.

“Stiles! It’s me! It’s Derek!” He rips off the blindfold at the same time, and Stiles stares back at him with wide eyes, scared and hopeful. 

By now the chaos out front has died down, so when Stiles surges into his arms, he grabs on tight to him. His plaid shirt had fallen down his arms, so the thin graphic t-shirt below hasn’t done much for keeping him warm. Stiles’ arms are  _ cold. _

“Hey, Stiles,” Cordova calls his attention. “I’m going to cut the duct tape and ropes, but we can’t remove the duct tape yet, it’s been stuck and tight for awhile and we don’t want to pull any skin. Is that okay?”

Stiles nods, refusing to move his face from Derek’s shoulder. His balance is awkward because of the tape, so Derek holds him up. 

Cordova cuts the tape on his ankles first, but Stiles still seems to be struggling to stand.

The second that Stiles’ wrists are free, they slump forward and Cordova races out to the front room, yelling about a paramedic. 

Stiles’ whine picks up for a second when he moves to lift his arms. Derek isn't sure how long he's had them pulled back like that, but he gets the memo that something is wrong when Stiles reaches up with his left hand to grip a strap on Derek’s vest, and the other still hangs limp at his side. 

“Your right shoulder?” Derek questions. Stiles responds with a nod and Derek feels warmth from tears spread on his shirt. He can't find it in him to care. 

After a moment alone, paramedics come in and work on the duct tape first. Layers unravel before they even reach the part in direct contact with his skin, and from there it’s slow. Derek pulls any pain he can, but luckily there’s not much. The paramedics can take their time with no pressing injuries to rush emergency on, and they do so carefully with some kind of ointment. 

John has worked his way into the room by the time that it's off, the only thing to show that there was ever tape on his face in the first place is some slight swelling from the pressure, but it's already gone down considerably. 

Unfortunately, Stiles’ shoulder seems to be dislocated, which the paramedics insist should be seen to by an orthopedic surgeon because no one is sure how long it's  _ been _ dislocated. His throat is a mosaic of bruises too, and Stiles isn't talking, so that's going to need checking. 

Derek suspects they're going to put him on muscle relaxants and some sedatives because Stiles’ anxiety can be  _ seen _ . Even once he's laid on the gurney sideways, he reaches out. John immediately grabs his hand, but Stiles looks down. 

_ Shame _ . 

 

For an hour, the pack sits in the waiting room at the hospital. Stiles’ shoulder had already been set, but apparently there's a list of problems that could have come up from being choked, so they check for neurological and physical injuries– the physiological or no doubt going to show in Stiles’ recovery period and possibly even longer. 

 

Some time passes by before the sheriff comes over to them. They look hopeful and ready for an update, but he shakes his head and pulls Derek aside. The man looks aged since he saw him earlier– reasonably so with the stress and the hours passed since they'd initially realized that Stiles was missing. 

 

Outside of Stiles’ room, a police officer stands guard. They'd rallied up most of the men, but apparently one had slipped through their grasp and perimeter around the apartment. 

The sheriff and Derek stop at the end of the hall, and the older man draws in a shaky breath. 

“Lord knows I can't do this myself, because I can't go in there and  _ not  _ be a father–” Derek nods.

“You need me to question him?” John nods regretfully. 

“I’d ask someone else, but he can barely talk. He needs someone he can trust so he can tell us all he can until he goes into the station for the formal statement.” Derek nods in understanding, glancing down the hall. “He asked for you, too.” His head snaps back. “He  _ trusts _ you, Derek, and not just because you're his Alpha.” John hands him a clipboard with a notepad and a few other documents then turns back the way they came. 

He moves in slow steps down the hall and enters the room slowly. Stiles’ eyes are shut, so Derek takes the moment to look him over. Stiles has a sling on his right arm, but on his other, there's an IV near the inside of his elbow. Both wrists sport thin bandaging, probably from rope burns. 

“I'm awake, you know.” Stiles peeks an eye open and glances at Derek, standing there in his deputy uniform, but wanting nothing more than to be there as a friend and comforting Stiles. 

“How’s your throat?” Derek asks, not quite knowing the diagnosis on it yet. 

“Strictly inside voice,” Stiles responds. “It looks worse than it is,” he tries to joke. “It's like a sore throat.” 

It definitely sounds like more than a sore throat, but he doesn't seem to be downplaying the pain, so Derek doesn't worry. He stares awkwardly at Stiles’ shoulder for a long minute before he can't speak up. 

“I need to–”

“–question me? It's okay, Derek.” His voice catches a little and he sounds less confident than he had before. “Just sit down, and I'll talk. I just–” Stiles takes a long moment, and reaches his hand out. Derek takes it instantly, sitting down beside the bed. The grip is tight and Stiles’ hand is shaking. 

“I need you to be here for me as more than an officer, but I can't keep it together if you  _ react  _ to what I say.” He says sharply. “You get that?” Stiles turns to look at him with wide and teary eyes. Derek nods. 

“Yeah, I can do that, Stiles.” Another silence. “We’ll start from the beginning.” He pulls his notepad out, setting it up on the small rolling table. 

 

“Around what time were you taken and what happened?” Derek opens.

“I just got home from Scott’s house.” He glances down at the notepad and begins jotting down notes with his free hand. “It was around 10:30 maybe?” 

Derek barely keeps from reacting to  _ that _ . No one had known for how long Stiles had been gone, in the hands of those men. It was three hours later before John had even arrived home, and another three before they were able to get their shit together. So late into the night, almost no one was around and people had to be called in and plans had to be reviewed. The location on Stiles’ phone wasn't even confirmed until–

“I went to lie down, but as I did, two men attacked me. One got on top of me, mounting me, and he started choking me.” Derek waits for Stiles to pause, but he continues on, voice sounding distant. “The other man restrained my wrists with duct tape. He did the same with my ankles, stripping me of my socks and shoes before he did. Then it was the tape around my mouth, but by then the guy stopped choking me. I tried to fight back. I hit the guy who’d choked me– they called him Mitch– I got him in the nose, but it didn’t do much.” Stiles shrugs and feels stupid for even trying.

“You were forced to write the note on the fridge, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Was there any threat over you?” Stiles pauses this time.

“No,” he eventually says. “I struggled to get away from it, but they held me there. I don’t think they wanted to hurt me, I think they just wanted to scare me.”

Derek nods, telling Stiles that he hears him. 

“Did anything happen between leaving your home and arriving at the apartment?”

“No.”

“You’ll have to talk about it in your formal statement.”

“Then it’ll be a boring section.” Stiles half smiles at himself and turns slightly onto his left side. 

“What happened there, up until we arrived?” Stiles heart rate picks up a bit, a blip on the machine, but Derek can hear it on his own. 

“Um… for awhile, not much. I was sat in a chair, and they switched out duct tape for rope on my wrists. Maybe after an hour of being there, some other guy showed up. He was mad, argued about morals, how he thought I was older– basically told Mitch he shouldn’t have kidnapped me and then Mitch shot him.” The end of the statement is so finalized that Derek can tell that Stiles didn’t go unfazed by it. 

“The body in the closet?”

“Yeah. After he was shot, we were both moved to the closet.”

“You were moved?”

“Yeah, I guess they didn't want me to hear much of what they were talking about  and it was the only door with a lock on it in there. I still heard a bit, but doesn't matter if you got them in lock up.” Derek must’ve made some movement because Stiles locked eyes with him. 

“You got them all, right? My dad said–”

“Your dad said that to help lower your anxiety. There's still one out there.”

“Which one?” 

“They referred to each other by nicknames around you, so there's no telling. I have a picture of the lineup, though. Maybe you can let us know who's missing?” 

“Yeah,” Stiles nods insistently. “I can do that. Anything to help.” 

“Alright, that's really helpful.” Derek moves his thumb in a calming circle on the back of Stiles’ hand. “Let's try to finish this first, okay?” Stiles nods and Derek thinks back to where he left off. 

“The closet,” Stiles answers for him. “Um, I’m not sure how much time passed from there. I was tired and barely managing to stay awake. After a while, Mitch came to the closet.” Stiles pauses, pulls his feet under the blanket more. Derek notices out of the corner of his eye but makes no comment. 

“He tried to rile me up, I guess? He was asking why I wasn't more scared. Asked if maybe I was bullied or dad hit me, but then he got this really weird look on his face. He had taken my phone when we left, I assume, because he pulled me into the back room, threw me under the window and then pulled the phone out.” Derek nods and writes more. It's not until he finished his sentence that he realizes he's not struggling to keep up with Stiles’ words anymore. 

Stiles isn’t talking anymore, and his hand is shaking like it was when Derek first found him. 

“He took the pictures then, correct?”

Stiles nods. 

“I have to ask– did he… Stiles, did he rape you?”

Stiles shakes his head. Derek would sigh in relief if Stiles hadn't asked him not to react to things. 

“Did he touch you?”  _ Nod _ . “More than in the pictures?”

“How many did he send you?” 

“Two.” Stiles nods again. 

“More than in the pictures,” he confirms. The hand in Derek’s twitches, and Derek can feel a jerk, like he’s ready to pull away.

Derek grips him just a bit tighter and says, “You don’t actually have to tell me about each instance.”

Stiles doesn’t pull his hand away, but he doesn’t nod either.

“From there,” Derek starts, “am I safe to assume you were blindfolded and put in the trunk?”

“Yeah,” he responds. His voice is softer now and he leans his head, scratching his cheek with his shoulder. “That’s it.”

“Alright, now I assume you know that each of the men will be charged differently, based on their individual actions.” Stiles nods.

“I need you to tell me who Mitch is.” Derek doesn’t want to, but he has to pull his hand away to sift through the papers that the sheriff had handed him. He pulls up a paper with the mug shots of the men they caught. 

For a brief second Stiles swears that Mitch is going to be the one that got away. He’s going to come after him again and Stiles is going to have to deal with all this bullshit.

But it’s  _ not  _ Mitch.

And Stiles has enough information to give his dad so that they can find this guy and who hired them. He can breathe.


End file.
